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Former dean Newhouse dies at 91

Published
July 7, 2014

Wade J. Newhouse Jr., a longtime Law School faculty member and
dean of the school from July 1986 to December 1987, passed away on
May 21. A resident of Getzville, N.Y., he was 91 years old.

During his tenure as dean, Newhouse reviewed the Law
School’s administrative structure, using computer technology
to improve budget planning, internal operations and recordkeeping.
He also worked to build stronger ties between the Law School and
its alumni. During his deanship, the school celebrated its
100th anniversary.

But his service to the Law School was not confined to his brief
tenure as dean.

For one thing, the design of John Lord O’Brian Hall in
large part reflects his influence. Before its completion and
dedication in 1974, Newhouse was the architects’ faculty
representative for decisions on configuring classrooms, the size of
faculty offices and the many other details that characterize the
Law School’s home. “When you build a law school
building, there are all kinds of interests to be satisfied,”
says emeritus Professor Marjorie Girth. “If he thought it
would make the students’ experience better and the faculty
interaction better, that’s what he went for.”

Newhouse also served as director of the Charles B. Sears Law
Library on three occasions, during one term introducing the NEXIS
legal research computer program. Additionally, he was director of
the Edwin F. Jaeckle Center for State and Local Government Law, and
served terms as assistant dean in 1961-62 and associate dean from
1966 to 1969.

In 1970, Newhouse worked with Norman Rosenberg ’71 to
organize a highly successful clinic to help Buffalo public school
students claim their due-process rights when they were suspended or
expelled from school.

Rosenberg, then an assistant professor at the Law School,
recalls, “Before Wade, there was very little attention paid
to school law issues. He had this vision about protecting students
who were caught up in school disciplinary issues. We built this
thing into a very vibrant, very successful enterprise, and it was
certainly meaningful to the kids in Buffalo who were in trouble and
now had an opportunity to have lawyers represent them and help them
through the process. Wade’s conviction was that these kids
had the right to some continuing education – the schools
couldn’t just kick them out on the street. He was
intellectually and personally committed to this issue.”

Girth also points to Newhouse’s support for the full and
fair inclusion of women at the Law School during the early days of
the feminist movement, advocating for female applicants in the
admissions process and in hiring faculty members and research
assistants.

A Tennessee native (his voice retained a hint of Southern drawl
all his life) and a graduate of the University of Michigan Law
School, Newhouse joined the Buffalo faculty in 1958 after teaching
at the law schools of Creighton and Columbia universities.

In Buffalo, students recalled a professor with a courtly
demeanor and a proponent of the transformative work of lawyers in
areas such as the civil rights movement. “I never saw
Professor Newhouse without a suit,” says Michael Rosen
’94, now a policy adviser in the Office of Terrorist
Financing and Financial Crimes, an arm of the U.S. Treasury
Department. “He was just that type of old-school person. He
really wanted you to understand the tremendous responsibility that
attorneys have to their clients and to these types of
issues.”

As a scholar, Newhouse focused his research on the legal rights
of disabled persons, public employee relations law, and law and
public education. He also was called upon to serve on the
Fleischmann Commission, a committee to study the quality, cost and
financing of public education in New York State. The
commission’s 1972 report recommended busing to end racial
segregation and proposed a state takeover of all public elementary
and secondary schools.

The Law School celebrated his service in 1990 when it awarded
him its highest honor, the Edwin F. Jaeckle Award.